I sometimes read that drone strikes are counterproductive to western security interests because each person killed by a drone results in more new ‘terrorists’. See, for example, ‘The more civilians US drones kill in the Mideast, the more radicals they create’.‘The more civilians US drones kill in the Mideast, the more radicals they create’
However, this analysis completely fails to understand what is driving elite military policy, carried out by the United States elite and key elite allies within NATO and elsewhere. In brief: drone strikes work precisely because they provoke violent responses which help elites to ‘justify’ their perpetual war to secure control of the world’s diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, water and strategic minerals while tightening control of domestic populations through expansion of the security and surveillance state. Elites want more violence. They are unconcerned that innocent civilians are killed. In fact, they kill civilians deliberately. See, for example, ‘Israel “directly targeted” children in drone strikes on Gaza, says rights group’ and ’41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground’. 41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground

Violence, particularly by demonised ‘others’ who often have to be seriously provoked into responding with violence, makes it easier to scare domestic populations into accepting restraints on their civil liberties, massive military expenditure at the cost of domestic social and environmental programs, military attacks against innocent ‘foreigners’ and massive profits for those few corporations and individuals who benefit from military spending.

Attacks by drones on innocent civilians, such as wedding parties in Afghanistan, serve the purpose of provoking retaliatory responses brilliantly. And by not mentioning the violence that provokes the retaliations while emphasising the retaliations themselves, elites and their agents are able to ‘justify’ western military policy for those not paying much attention or gullible enough to believe the warped perspective presented by compliant academics and the corporate media.

So do elites want to kill people just to make a profit? No. It’s not that simple. Elites want to kill people because they are insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane‘.

Until we participate in comprehensive strategies to resist elite (and other) violence exclusively with strategically applied nonviolence, we will continue to be their ‘complementary doubles’, and thus victims, in the use of violence. Activists, scholars and others who do not realise this are simply playing into elite hands.

Of course, having the emotional and intellectual capacity to resist violence with strategically applied nonviolence is a big ‘ask’ of anyone. But while our fear gets in the way of us learning how to intelligently analyse and strategically resist the psychology that drives violence, we condemn ourselves to perpetual victimhood and assist elite efforts to victimise us even further.

While we play the game by elite rules and rely on violence to confront them, we ensure our own defeat: the military-nuclear-industrial complex is under their control and the smaller weapons we have at our disposal are only useful as tools for them to use to scare us into fighting each other or to justify their violent attacks, including by their police, on us.

We might fail. But I would prefer to implement a strategy that can work rather than repeat, for the umpteenth time, a strategy that history teaches us never works. And history does teach us that violence never works although elites work hard to convince us that, in this or that context, violence succeeded.

This is a delusion. Violence always sows the seeds for the next bout of violence (World War I led to World War II which led to…) and/or shifts the violence to the structural domain (where, for example, economic structures cause poverty) and/or the cultural domain (so that, for example, ‘ending’ slavery in the US gave way to institutionalised racism).

So I invite you to consider participating in a comprehensive strategy that is designed to undermine violence, in all of its manifestations, and to break the cycle that is driving us to extinction.

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said: ‘The enemy is violence.’ But I believe the true enemy is our fear: the fear of nonviolently resisting violence, in all of its manifestations. Are you afraid?

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News
editorial policy.

An interesting but quite “naively realistic” theory based on false premises and
inaccurate historical analysis. While the “elite” are in fact “insane”, they can be
relied on to employ “violence” against non violent protest to protect what they
have acquired. Since our species ( the talking monkey ) has failed to evolve
actual intelligence and is driven by biological imperatives which have failed
to adapt to “civilization” this cycle will continue until the our philosophical understanding
embraces the “reality” of the universe we inhabit, and the natural environment which
supports our existence and permits our continued survival.

The “elites” can rely on the present delusional state to preserve “ideas” which
support its continuation. 1.) That they have achieved their position by merit.
2.) They are permitted to maintain it by whatever means are necessary. 3.)
Anyone can duplicate what they have accomplished 4.) Technology will provide the just
in time miracles to solve whatever problems we face. 5.) That because they are
“insulated” and removed from direct involvement from the damage and death they
should be held accountable for and because they can rely on “others” to be corrupted,
they can employ violence to discourage any exposure of the delusional mythology
which would threaten its continuation, whether violent or non-violent.

Because the of the ability to distract the victims from the true source of their problems,
violent responses are often misdirected…….and the elites can now discredit these actions
even though they are ultimately the CAUSE of them.

Until this delusional mythology is rejected in all its forms, violence is a natural response
and the only responsible caveat that should be offered, is that it should be directed at
the actual CAUSE of the problem…..not those who are also its victims.

Aer O’Head

The largest USERS and MANUFACTURERS of military drones? Israel and the U.S. Dealing death by joystick.

The recent devastating car bombing in Mogadishu has been blamed by Somali officials on the terrorist group al-Shabab. But the violence (and famine) that have beset Somalia have deeper roots — decades of imperialism and intervention, and use of Somalia as a staging grounds for the “war on terror.”

Buried among statistics on gun profits and lobbying efforts is the terrifying reality of just how unique America’s gun obsession and associated violence are. And the equally terrifying plan by the NRA to “normalize” gun possession in nearly every nook and cranny of American life.

U.S. campaigns for regime change characteristically focus on the “madness” of the “dictators” to be toppled. In the case of North Korea, the narrative is spiced by the country’s developing nuclear capabilities — which North Korea views as its main line of defense against . . . regime change.

Aung Su Kyi, the leader of Myanmar, has been accused of “legitimizing genocide” against the country’s Rohingya Muslims, despite being a Nobel Prize laureate. Her country’s military has massacred thousands of Rohingya, leading some to call for Kyi’s Nobel Prize to be revoked.